And she had entered the prison, as a nurse might have entered it, in charge of a child. I did what we all do when we are not clever enough to find the answer to a riddle--I gave it up.
"What can I do for you?" I asked.
"Perhaps you can tell me," she answered, "how much longer I am to be kept waiting in this prison."
"The decision," I reminded her, "doesn't depend on me."
"Then who does it depend on?"
The Minister had undoubtedly acquired the sole right of deciding. It was for him to say whether this woman should, or should not, remain in attendance on the child whom he had adopted. In the meanwhile, the feeling of distrust which was gaining on my mind warned me to remember the value of reserve in holding intercourse with a stranger.
She seemed to be irritated by my silence. "If the decision doesn't rest with you," she asked, "why did you tell me to stay in the waiting-room?"
"You brought the little girl into the prison," I said; "was it not natural to suppose that your mistress might want you--"
"Stop, sir!"
I had evidently given offense; I stopped directly.
"No person on the face of the earth," she declared, loftily, "has ever had the right to call herself my mistress. Of my own free will, sir, I took charge of the child."
"Because you are fond of her?" I suggested.
"I hate her."
It was unwise on my part--I protested. "Hate a baby little more than a year old!" I said.
"Her baby!"
She said it with the air of a woman who had produced an unanswerable reason. "I am accountable to nobody," she went on. "If I consented to trouble myself with the child, it was in remembrance of my friendship--notice, if you please, that I say friendship--with the unhappy father."
Putting together what I had just heard, and what I had seen in the cell, I drew the right conclusion at last. The woman, whose position in life had been thus far an impenetrable mystery to me, now stood revealed as one, among other objects of the Prisoner's jealousy, during her disastrous married life. A serious doubt occurred to me as to the authority under which the husband's mistress might be acting, after the husband's death. I instantly put it to the test.
"Do I understand you to assert any claim to the child?" I asked.
"Claim?" she repeated. "I know no more of the child than you do. I heard for the first time that such a creature was in existence, when her murdered father sent for me in his dying moments. At his entreaty I promised to take care of her, while her vile mother was out of the house and in the hands of the law. My promise has been performed. If I am expected (having brought her to the prison) to take her away again, understand this: I am under no obligation (even if I could afford it) to burden myself with that child; I shall hand her over to the workhouse authorities."
I forgot myself once more--I lost my temper.
"Leave the room," I said. "Your unworthy hands will not touch the poor baby again. She is provided for."
"I don't believe you!" the wretch burst out. "Who has taken the child?"
A quiet voice answered: "I have taken her."
We both looked round and saw the Minister standing in the open doorway, with the child in his arms. The ordeal that he had gone through in the condemned cell was visible in his face; he looked miserably haggard and broken. I was eager to know if his merciful interest in the Prisoner had purified her guilty soul--but at the same time I was afraid, after what he had but too plainly suffered, to ask him to enter into details.
"Only one word," I said. "Are your anxieties at rest?"
"God's mercy has helped me," he answered. "I have not spoken in vain. She believes; she repents; she has confessed the crime."
After handing the written and signed confession to me, he approached the venomous creature, still lingering in the room to hear what passed between us. Before I could stop him, he spoke to her, under a natural impression that he was addressing the Prisoner's servant.
"I am afraid you will be disappointed," he said, "when I tell you that your services will no longer be required. I have reasons for placing the child under the care of a nurse of my own choosing."
She listened with an evil smile.
"I know who furnished you with your reasons," she answered. "Apologies are quite needless, so far as I am concerned. If you had proposed to me to look after the new member of your family there, I should have felt it my duty to myself to have refused. I am not a nurse--I am an independent single lady. I see by your dress that you are a clergyman. Allow me to present myself as a mark of respect to your cloth. I am Miss Elizabeth Chance. May I ask the favor of your name?"
Too weary and too preoccupied to notice the insolence of her manner, the Minister mentioned his name. "I am anxious," he said, "to know if the child has been baptized. Perhaps you can enlighten me?"
Still insolent, Miss Elizabeth Chance shook her head carelessly. "I never heard--and, to tell you the truth, I never cared to hear--whether she was christened or not. Call her by what name you like, I can tell you this--you will find your adopted daughter a heavy handful."
The Minister turned to me. "What does she mean?"
"I will try to tell you," Miss Chance interposed. "Being a clergyman, you know who Deborah was? Very well. I am Deborah now; and I prophesy." She pointed to the child. "Remember what I say, reverend sir! You will find the tigress-cub take after its mother."
With those parting words, she favored us with a low curtsey, and left the room.
CHAPTER VI.
THE DOCTOR DOUBTS.
The Minister looked at me in an absent manner; his attention seemed to have been wandering. "What was it Miss Chance said?" he asked.
Before I could speak, a friend's voice at the door interrupted us. The Doctor, returning to me as he had promised, answered the Minister's question in these words:
"I must have passed the person you mean, sir, as I was coming in here; and I heard her say: 'You will find the tigress-cub take after its mother.' If she had known how to put her meaning into good English, Miss Chance--that is the name you mentioned, I think--might have told you that the vices of the parents are inherited by the children. And the one particular parent she had in her mind," the Doctor continued, gently patting the child's cheek, "was no doubt the mother of this unfortunate little creature--who may, or may not, live to show you that she comes of a bad stock and inherits a wicked nature."
I was on the point of protesting against my friend's interpretation, when the Minister stopped me.
"Let me thank you, sir, for your explanation," he said to the Doctor. "As soon as my mind is free, I will reflect on what you have said. Forgive me, Mr. Governor," he went on, "if I leave you, now that I have placed the Prisoner's confession in your hands. It has been an effort to me to say the little I have said, since I first entered this room. I can think of nothing but that unhappy criminal, and the death that she must die to-morrow."
"Does she wish you to be present?" I asked.